| From
Tehelka Magazine, Vol 7, Issue 21, Dated May 29, 2010 |
|
| |
PATNA
The Fleshy Tones
Of Real India
Amitava
Kumar
The author, most recently,
of Evidence of Suspicion.
Lives in upstate New York
 |
Permanently pure Boat rides in the holy Ganges
are an integral part of the tourist attractions
of Patna
Photo: DEEPAK KUMAR |
 Going to Patna for a vacation
sounds a bit like
going to the bus-stop for
a martini. But my parents
live there, and
Patna is where i visit for
the holidays. i find myself reciting the
familiar woes of an nri in the motherland,
the endless clichés about the
heat and dust, but a part of me also believes
that a trip to Patna offers a
glimpse of the real india. i’m not talking
of ‘poverty tourism’ here, but
something quite specific. A report
from the un stated that in india it is
easier to have a mobile phone than to
have access to a toilet. Well, ladies and
gentlemen, come to Patna — you’ll see
that the rickshaw-puller has tucked
into the little pocket of his torn ganji a
small phone, while on both sides of the
street, as you ride the rickshaw into
the market or the station, arises the
distinct aroma of drying urine.
I exaggerate, of course, but only
marginally. You can go for a boat ride
on the ganges in search of fresh air.
if you can stand the loud roar of the
engines, and the snout-up-in-the-air
pose of the boats, it is a fun ride. the
brown and pink tones of the buildings
seen from a distance, the city revealing
another side of itself, like a face
glimpsed from another angle. As the
boat zooms, what comes close is the
magnificent concrete expanse of the five kilometre-long bridge across the
river. When the boatman turns around
and you are on the way back to the
ghat, the human scale reasserts itself
in the line of buttocks that form the
indelicate horizon. We have always
been told that the ganges is the eternal
river, it is pure, and not even this
massive outpouring of shit will sully it.
TRIFLES
Patna is one of the oldest
continuously inhabited places in
the world. It has existed, under
various names and without a
break, since 490 BC
Nearest airport: Patna, Bihar
Nearest station: Patna Junction |
When i was a boy, growing up in
that city, relatives who were visiting
would sometimes go to the airport in
the evening to watch a plane land and
take off. And near the airport, the wide
roads that lead to the governor House
served as a boulevard for strolling. i
was often taken to the Soda Fountain,
near gandhi Maidan, for ice-cream.
of course, neither the place, nor the
people, are the same now. in modernday
Patna, you can play pool or visit
the fast-food restaurants or stroll in
the Maurya Lok shopping centre
among the unusually high number of jewellery stores.
But, in both the Patna of old and the
city that is thriving today, a popular
site for visitors remains the gol ghar.
A giant, dome-shaped granary built by
the British in 1786, after the famine
that killed 10 million people, it is a
marvel of architecture. the gol ghar
is constructed like a stupa; it is
pillarless, and has a spiral stairway
leading to the top. i always enjoy
climbing it. i can look at the city, but
also at the people coming on the stairs
after me, eager to capture their personal
view of Patna.
We shouldn’t, i think, search for
symbolic significance in the fact that
because of a fatal flaw in the construction
of its doors, the gol ghar has
never been put to use in the way that it
was originally designed. |
